The Seagate Backup Plus for Mac portable drive simplifies backup for consumers who want to protect their entire digital life locally or on social networks. The drive is formatted for Mac out of the box, making it compatible with Time Machine software to provide the simplest and most efficient way to back up locally. With the Save feature, user-generated content can be backed up from your favorite social networks. Many people now use their smartphones to capture priceless moments. While these devices are handy and readily available, storage is not their strong suit. Capture a memory, post it on a social networking site and let the Seagate Dashboard automatically back up any content posted. Even if the file gets accidentally deleted from the device, another copy can be waiting. The Share feature allows multiple files to be uploaded to social networks at once from your computer. Simply select files to upload, choose where to post them and even add comments. Managing your social profile ha

Remember the “Mac vs. PC” ads? In one of them, “Mac vs. Fat PC”, the latter is complaining about all the extra trial software that comes preinstalled from the manufacturer, slowing him down and creating compatibility issues all over. Mac, in contrast, is lean, mean, and simply pristine.

Yeah that was then, this is now. The era of manufacturer bloatware has arrived for the Mac too. I gather, when all the industry buzz is about trusting your digital life to “the Cloud”, hard drive manufacturers might feel like they need to do _something_ to stay in business. So they “join them”.

In this case, Seagate is apparently trying to sell you the idea that you need to back up your data FROM the cloud onto a personal drive. Clearly, it is more secure there than when managed by the cowboys at Amazon or Google.

Maybe there is a market niche for this line of thought. I am not in that niche however, and I think this emphasis makes Seagate lose their focus on what they are good at: Making darn good, robust drives!

And let’s face it, just like computers failed to bring about the “paperless society”, there is no indication that people’s need for personal storage and backup devices will diminish – quite the opposite.

So the first thing I did was to NOT install any of the bundled software. Instead, I just plugged it in, and started using it with Time Machine. For that task, it is an excellent option:

* It plugs in to any USB port on your Mac, even those on your Apple USB keyboard, without the need for external power. * It is preformatted for HFS+, which means there is no extra setup needed to use with Time Machine * It is fast and very quiet. * Even more so if you have one of the newer Macs, given the option of Thunderbolt.

One caveat is that the interface is the older mini-USB standard, not micro-USB as is more common these days. This means that you will likely need to use a dedicated cable (such as the included one) with this drive, rather than sharing with your phone, camera, etc.

The industrial design is otherwise excellent. It looks sleek (slightly moreso than my Western Digital passport drive) and sturdy at the same time. It is otherwise lightweight and quite portable.

Compared to drives from other manufacturers, the price also seems to be right – especially given Seagate’s reputation for reliability.

This external drive has a nice form factor. Thin, light and simple to use as expected. The USB 3.0 cable is included and that’s a nice plus these days.

My primary concern is with the Seagate registration software – it pulls your email address right off your computer with no ‘by your leave’ or anything. Makes me wonder if I am installing adware by using the software….Seagate claims that you receive a year of cloud storage with the drive. The email received from Seagate states to click on the ‘cloud storage icon’ to access this feature. The problem is there is no ‘cloud storage icon’ in the Seagate Dashboard software. I discovered on the support site that the cloud service is NOT compatible with MAC – lovely. They do not tell you that in the product documentation = FAIL.

The Seagate Dashboard software is fairly simple and does not take a great deal of space on the HD. Basic information, drive management and testing are available from the dashboard/backup plus panel. Then we came to let me backup on the drive – NOPE – would not allow any of that. The dashboard software had no protect icon as depicted in the online manual = FAIL

So, what’s the end result? You get an external drive – it’s ‘special’ options DO NOT WORK with Mac – even though they claim to. I was unable to review the rest of those functions for that very reason. Greatly disappointed in Seagate for submitting an inferior software product claiming to do things that it is not capable of doing.

The only PRO of this review is that it is a nice, 500GB external HD with a decent form factor and connection. As for utilizing it for a backup – I will have to use time machine.

This reply is from Seagate Support. We noticed your review and wanted to comment on your experience with your Backup Plus Portable drive. The registration process is totally optional on this product. If you do not wish to register, simply close the window and click “Never Register This Drive” to skip that step. The Seagate Backup Plus for Mac doesn’t advertise one year of service or cloud backup features. This drive is pre-formatted for Mac OS which works with Time Machine right out of the box as a great backup solution. It offers the ability to upload and download content from social media sites using the included Dashboard software.

Please use the link reference in your quick start guide to install Windows software that will allow you to mount the drive in Windows for cross platform functionality.

Here’s what I think about the Seagate Backup Plus Portable External Hard Drive for Mac:

PROS:1)It’s sleek, small and truly portable.2) It’s upgradable to Firewire and Thunderbolt via an adapter (available as an extra purchase.) This is a major PRO!3) Drive comes with videos for using its social network backup options.4) It has a limited 2 year warranty. Very cool.

CONS:1) The Seagate Dashboard software is NOT easily installed. In fact, said install *will* fail if you’re running MAC OS 10 and above. You must go to Custom Install and then uncheck the OS 9.5 utility/application; then you’ll be able to install the Seagate Dashbord application. (You MUST install Seagate Dashbord in order to use the social media back-up feature.) The installer should be able to delete the OS 9.5 software for machines running OS 10 and higher instead of having an INSTALLATION FAILURE.2)I share reviewer’s James Ridgeway’s concerns — this drive is NOT totally Mac compatible or is it fully functional. The Mac version of Seagate Dashboard doesn’t have either the Cloud or the Protect features. From the User Manual: “The Protect feature and Cloud Storage service are only available on the Windows version of Seagate Dashboard. For Mac systems, Seagate recommends that you back up your system using Apple Time Machine.” (In other words: go to Time Machine and set it to save to your Backup Plus.) Make no mistake: this is a Windows drive with limited Mac functionality and features.

Keeping the above PROs and CONs in mind, the Seagate Backup Plus is a good basic backup drive for your Mac *if* you’re using Time Machine or *if* you choose to backup manually. It’s just like my other back-up drives in this respect. I very much like the fact that it’s upgradable to Firewire and Thunderbolt; however, because I didn’t purchase the necessary adapter, I can’t review the functionality of this feature.

Overall, Seagate makes an excellent product. Their drives are dependable — and I’ve NEVER had a Seagate product fail in all my years of use. The skinny is that if you’re a Mac user and you want a really solid backup drive to use with Time Machine, this is drive is an excellent choice. If you want to automatically backup from your Cloud, it’s not.